Clarke's first thoughts after reading the script were of shock. “What, what, what, WHAT!?” she told Entertainment Weekly in an interview. “Because it comes out of f---ing nowhere. I’m flabbergasted. Absolutely never saw that coming.”

***SPOILERS BELOW!***

Clarke revealed she found out the big news that Daenerys would die in the series finale back in October of 2017. She had just finished filming Solo: A Star Wars Story and was at Heathrow airport, flying back home to London after a vacation, when she received the script. Like any normal person, she flipped out when she got to the shocking death scene.

When she arrived at her home, she got a cup of tea and prepared herself to read the final script in full. "I cried, and I went for a walk," Clarke said. "I walked out of the house and took my keys and phone and walked back with blisters on my feet. I didn’t come back for five hours. I’m like, ‘How am I going to do this?’”

Days later, she flew to Belfast for the table read for the Season 8. Next to her on the flight was Kit Harrington, who plays Jon Snow in the series — the character who kills Dany. During the table read, she sat across from him to gauge his reaction to the scene. (He ended up crying, she said.)

Clarke also admitted that she is emotionally attached to the character. “It’s gotten to that point now where you read [comments about[ the character you [remind yourself], ‘They’re not talking about you, Emilia, they’re talking about the character.”

The actress did admit, however, that there was one fan of the show she was worried about the reaction from: Beyoncé. Clarke shared that she feared that the artist would hate her character and how her story ended. "I was just, like, 'Oh, my God, my absolute idol in life is saying that she likes me,'" Clarke told The New Yorker. "And I know for a fact that by the end of this season she's going to hate me."